Waste containers are common on city streets, amusement park walkways, restaurants and the like. Many are lined with plastic liners which are designed to collect the deposited trash, be removed to a trash dump and the outer shell of the container will be relined with an additional plastic liner.
The problem often experienced by the maintenance workers in charge of the container is securing the plastic liner to the container by some means where the liner will not be pulled into the container by the trash being deposited.
One way this is accomplished is to insert the bag into the container with the open end of the liner bag extending upwardly and being pulled over the edge of the top lip of the container shell and then down the outside of the shell in an inverted U-shaped design. A lip or top which fits over the trash container shell is placed over the top of the container and a closely fitting set of flanges sandwiches the liner top between a lip on the container lid and the side wall of the container shell. This is a perfectly satisfactory way of insuring that food and beverage trash which is deposited in the container through suitable openings in the lid will not pull the liner into the container. However, it is a time consuming chore, an expensive trash container and food and other liquid trash being deposited will tend to collect on exposed surfaces of the lid.
While this type of lined trash container may be economically practical in a stationary work area it is too expensive for periodic street fairs and the like where hundreds of trash containers are needed. Between annual street fairs a city or village may not need the expensive rigid containers and storage space may be limited.
There is a need for a simple reusable, inexpensive trash container which allows easy and quick replacement of the liner and which will not have a lid where garbage will coat the sides of the permanent structure. Additionally, there is a need for such a container which will fold up to minimize the need for storage space
Fiberboard containers have previously been suggested for reusable trash container shells but no suitable way has been suggested for locking the plastic liner to the upper edge of the open shell. Ways used previously include taping, stapling, hand tying the upper edge of the plastic liner in a knot to try to pull the outside portion of the liner tightly against the shell exterior. However, what happens very quickly with the tied liner is that one edge of the liner will be pulled into the container by the deposition of some heavy object such as a half full container of soft drink and then people simply drop their trash into the container which tends to pull the liner further down into the container shell and the garbage simply collects on top of the liner. The result is that the side walls of the container shell are contaminated by food and liquids and the fiberboard container becomes unusable. With tape and staples the attaching chore is time consuming and removal of the filled bag systemically destroys the top of the fiberboard container as each successive staple is ripped out.